Discoveries on the road to a joyfilled life ~ Paula McFarlane Insight Coaching

Category Archives: Grief

I can safely say that I am more engaged in what I do than I have ever been in any job or business I have had in the past. I love the level of engagement I feel in what I do and that every day I get up and go to “work” with a level of excitement and enthusiasm I only imagined existed. So how did this come about? What is this nirvana of “love what I do ” that I am currently experiencing? The key reason for my current level of joy and satisfaction in what I do is that I have a strong connection to why I am doing it. I have found my “why”

Having a compelling “why” is something that I coach my clients on frequently but it isn’t always easy to nail down exactly what it is for people. We all have different values and beliefs and things that we want to do, be and have in life. One “why” does not fit all!

So how do you find your own? I’d like to tell you the story of my why and I hope it will lead you just a little. It closer to discovering your own.

31/2 years ago my husband died of cancer. Now there are a lot of experiences that go hand in hand with the kind of loss I have been through but one of the real gifts was that it lead me to my why. When I lost Ande for a period of some months I couldn’t understand why I was still here. He was my purpose and without him I felt I had no function. However as time past and I began to heal I began to realize that he was in fact still my purpose. He was a beautiful, intelligent, caring and giving human being who died at age 45 with a lot of his music still inside him but I am still a living and I have the chance to not do that. I have the chance because of him to be, do and have all that I really want in my life. The best way for me to honor him and his memory is to be true to myself and to truly be me in each and every moment.

So I began to ask myself the question – Who am I really?, What are my values?, What do I want to create? What have all my experiences to this point shown me?

I came to know that freedom and authenticity are two of my strongest values. I began to feel how much I need to set my own timetable and how constrained certain things in my life made me feel. I discovered how much I love supporting others to reclaim their truth and to connect with who they are and express that in their life and business. I saw that my working life held some patterns that revealed to me something I was observing not only in my own life but in the lives of people I was working with.

Ande became my purpose once again but he also became much more than that. Losing him guided me back to myself and to realising what success truly means for me and that to do that for other people would take my breath away.

So now I create a life that I love and although Ande still remains my anchor point my connection to my desire to lead others to deep experiences of success is why I get up each and every day with a spring in my step and the fact that doing that allows me to live in alignment with my values of freedom, authenticity, fairness, love and truth is the icing on the cake.

How will my story help you find your”why”? please don’t think that to get there you need to experience any kind of loss in your life because you don’t. All you need to do is to get curious. Get curious about what drives you, what your values are and whether you are living your life by them. Get curious about what makes you feel good and what makes time fly for you. Try a few “why’s on for size and see if they fit. Treat the whole process as an experiment and get really good at noticing what is being revealed to you. Taking a step back and viewing your life and your choices in this way will lead you to not only know yourself better and feel a greater sense of purpose it will lead you to your why.

If you would like support to find your wyh I’d love to help, book a free clarity call with me over on my website www.paulamcfarlane.com or if you are in Christchurch join my next Love your Biz Group coaching program that begins on 11th October. Info also on the website.

This time last year I had just returned from Hawaii where I had the great honor of learning from the late Wayne Dyer at the Hay House Writers workshop. Wayne’s words have been on my mind this week as I have been gearing back into creation mode after my break in Indonesia. Wayne talked about one of the his key motivators in life being a message he wrote to himself after reading Leo Tolstoy’s “The death off Ivan Illycich” which had been given to him by his Uncle Bill. ( you can hear Wayne talk about this here https://vimeo.com/19672457)

The message ” Don’t die with your music still in you”

This statement resonates with me on so many levels. We all have so much unshared, untapped talent, wisdom and insight that we keep to ourselves and don’t express. We hold on to our gold because of feelings of not being good enough. We let our fears get in the way of what it is we truly want to do or be in our lives.

I bet even in this very moment as you are reading this you are aware of a part of yourself that you don’t give life to, or a talent or desire that you keep on the back burner. You allow your job or circumstances to take precedent over what you really love and what you are really good at.

Sometimes we just get in our own way. We are afraid of what other people will think or what it will mean for our lives or our families.

I totally understand this

I get it

I have done it myself and still do in certain areas but less and less.

For me losing some very precious souls over the years has shown me how much it costs us mentally, physically and emotionally to deny parts of ourselves, to deny what we truly desire. I have been struck by how much the world has lost when these same loved ones have passed without ever really sharing themselves fully with the world.

It breaks my heart to know that others wont remember them for who they really were, they will remember who it was they allowed the world to see.

It broke my heart until I realised I could do something about it.

I could be part of the solution not part of the problem. I could do something about it by sharing myself more fully with the world. By sharing my talents and skills and by showing up as myself, no cover up, no disguise or what is “acceptable”

I could do something about it by supporting others to share their music too.

It has felt scary. It has felt vulnerable and it still does some days but it has also lead me into a new career that I love. It has given me the job of supporting others to share themselves with the world. To share their music from a foundation of what feels right for them and what is true for them.

I have been given the gift of self-examination. I have 46 years of experience of calling myself to understand more, to feel more, to do more and to be more. Life has become my toolbox for working with others, for uncovering truth, values, deciphering the code of fears and blocks and stuckness.

I am intimately acquainted with the challenges of change and loss and grief. My painful experiences serve as a balm to soothe and hold others through their own. I feel very blessed to walk this path.

I feel blessed that I can honor those I have lost and support those who feel called to work with me through my own understanding of why this is so important. Why you and me and you and you and you and you all have something very special to bring to the world, to your family and your community but most importantly to yourself.

Your impact as an individual in this life you are living can never be underestimated.

So lets write that symphony that’s inside you, lets gather the notes that are your music and find a way to bring it forward, to let your melody out into the world.

It’s never too late to answer that call within, it’s never too late to become more of who you are in any aspect of your life. Get support, make a change and most of all don’t die with your music still in you!

Paula xx

If you would like to try coaching email pmcfarlane@clear.net.nz or phone me on 0274327601 to set up a complimentary 20 min call to see if it’s for you.